Manchester United captain Antonio Valencia insisted he is “fully supportive” of Jose Mourinho after appearing to back calls for the under-fire manager to leave.
All is not rosy at Old Trafford and a winless run stretched to a fourth game on Tuesday as Spanish visitors Valencia held United to a 0-0 draw in the Champions League.
Struggles on the field are compounded by issues away from it, with reports that skipper Valencia is not seeing eye-to-eye with Mourinho fuelled after the game.
The 33-liked-old ‘liked’ an Instagram post from a fan account which said that “recently Mourinho has made watching us a punishment” and “it’s time for Mourinho to go”.
Wary of the media scrutiny it had caused, as well as the manager’s argument with Paul Pogba about social media last week, Valencia attempted to explain and apologise on Wednesday morning.
“Yesterday, I liked a post on Instagram without reading the text that accompanied the picture,” the right-back wrote on Twitter.
“These are not my views and I apologise for this. I am fully supportive of the manager and my teammates.
“We are all giving our everything to improve the results.”
ga('create', 'UA-72310761-1', 'auto', {'name': 'pacontentapi'});
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'referrer', location.origin);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension1', 'By Simon Peach, Press Association Chief Football Writer');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension2', '6c708e8a-edcc-4aa6-b81f-11be25556858');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension3', 'paservice:sport,paservice:sport:club-news,paservice:sport:football,paservice:sport:uk');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension6', 'story');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension7', 'composite');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension8', null);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension9', 'sport:football');
ga('pacontentapi.send', 'pageview', { 'location': location.href, 'page': (location.pathname + location.search + location.hash), 'title': 'I am fully behind the manager \u2013 Captain Valencia denies reports of Mourinho rift'});